#KindnessMatters at HBCUs
…People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did but people will never forget how you made them feel… …
Category: African American Experience
What is Africa to Me?
Title taken from the poem Heritage by Countee Cullen This place is, at once, welcoming and entirely foreign to me. I landed at an unassuming but functional airport, moved effortlessly through customs, gathered my baggage and walked out into a…
What Happens to a Dream Deferred…
My voice has been silence these past several weeks as the nation has been consumed by the events in Ferguson, Missouri and New York City. I have imagined that I have little to contribute to the chorus of political and…
Locked Hair Is…
In 1995, my dear friend and colleague, the late Dr. Rudolph P. Byrd, and I decided to lock our hair. This was a fairly radical decision for both of us as we were two academicians firmly situated at well-known and…
A Man Bound…
Imagine the gut-wrenching pain and unbridled sorrow you experience after yet another unarmed black boy is killed by a policeman. Imagine the conversation you must have with your young daughters in your efforts to keep them safe when they leave…
Summer of 1964…Some Times are Worse than Others…
“There are no good times to be black in America, but some times are worse than others” David Bradley It was a restless and troubling time and this nation was facing a profound crisis of national identity. Would it be,…
On Premises
This is dedicated to Winnie, Mama Virgie, Aunt Mattie and Mary. These were the women who loved me unconditionally and affirmed my worth as a little black boy growing up in Miami, Florida. They were domestics and worked far away…
Let a New Earth Rise…
Let a new earth rise. Let another world be born. Let a bloody peace be written in the sky. Let a second generation full of courage issue forth; let a people loving freedom come to growth. Margaret Walker I…
Don’t You Know My Name…
Little bird got a name, you call it sparrow… Drop of water got a name, you call it rain… He is a man, but its slave you call him… From the song, SLAVE, sung by Dionne Warwick In the warmth…
The Lupita Effect
There are those moments in time, often brief and fleeting, that are a watershed and force a collective re-imagination of fundamental assumptions about who we are and how we are situated in the world. For this moment, she stands at…